Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a criminal to history less than his purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

During the middle part of the last century, these women came into American homes and presented an idealized version of what the American family looked like.

They set style and home-making trends, but did these icons really represent reality or just an image through a 1950s television lens?

The end.

Let's talk about the real housewives of the 1950s.

Yes, let's.

But first, let's drop them into history.

In 1952, the Mr. Potato Head toy is introduced.

Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing US commonwealth.

Ronald Reagan marries Nancy Davis.

The Korean War was in its second year.

Eisenhower defeats Stevenson for the US presidency.

And on October 3rd, 1952, the adventures of Ozzy and Harriet premiered.

The fabricated adventures of a real-life family.

So with such an unusual show, we thought we might just tell you what the structure is going to be a little bit.

It's not going to be the same as usual.

And first, we were like, oh, 50s housewives, this will be fun.

And then we actually got down to it.

We're like, okay, we need a little brawl over the place.

So let's talk first about the shows, the women of these shows.

Then we'll talk about what they represented.

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